✅ Fixing BarrierTanks and OffTanks

General Discussion
1

Summary:

For Sigma, Orisa, and optionally Reinhardt.

  • Higher BarrierHP = MainTank Viability
  • More Firepower = The Fun
  • Lower HP = Counter/Tradeoff

Orisa

  • Barrier - Health at 900, cooldown at 8 seconds
  • Fusion Driver (Primary) - Damage increased to 13, from 11, 14% more
  • Health reduced to 150HP and 200Armor
  • Fortify - Reduced to 20% damage resistance

Sigma

  • Barrier - Health increased to 1300
  • Hyperspheres - Damage increased to 65, up from 55, 14% more
  • Health - Reduced to 150HP and 200ShieldHP
  • Kinetic Grasp - Maximum temporary shield gain, reduced to 100.

Reinhardt

  • Health - Reduced to 200HP and 200Armor
  • Hammer (Primary) - Damage increased to 80, from 75, 7% more
  • Barrier - Health increased to 1800, from 1600
  • Barrier - Movement penalty reduced to 20%, down from 30%, 14% more movement speed while barriered.

Winston

  • Health: 400HP + 200Armor
  • Jumppack - Cooldown reduced to 5 seconds, down from 6

Mei

  • Move to Tank Role
    • So she can’t Peel for DoubleBarrier
  • 350hp, 100selfheal, 10sec Icewall
  • Also gets her out of OWL.

Results

  1. DoubleBarrier becomes “problematic”, because they are leaving themselves wide open to getting rushed down by Dive/Speedboost compositions. A strong counter.
  2. More shooting stuff, less boring blue rectangle management.
  3. SingleBarrier is good.
  4. OffTanks have an advantage with higher raw HP.
  5. Winston was never really a problem with DoubleBarrier. And the cooldown change gives Dive a bit more pressure.

Precaution

  • This probably needs playtesting.
  • But that’s what we have Experimental Mode for.

Credits

to Rocktopus and RaysOfGlory and EFR for some inspiration on this.

And so OffTanks don’t feel left out, and without purpose, let’s buff their Peeling abilities a bit:

Zarya

  • -1sec on Projected barrier.

Roadhog

  • -1sec on Chain Hook.

D.va

  • 6sec to regain full Matrix resource.

Wrecking Ball

  • -1sec on Grappling Claw.
6 Likes
2

And so OffTanks don’t feel left out, and without purpose, let’s buff their Peeling abilities a bit:

Zarya

  • -1sec on Projected barrier.

Roadhog

  • -1sec on Chain Hook.

D.va

  • -1sec needed to regain full Matrix resource.

Wrecking Ball

  • -1sec on Grappling Claw.
1 Like
3

I can get behind these. Bringing some fun into the barrier tank role while still letting the off-tanks serve a purpose. Sadly, Blizz will ignore this and the tank balance will continue to be a clustertruck.

1 Like
4

I prefer your Bruiser idea rather than this one tbh. At least then, the main tanks don’t have drastic changes as to what you propose here imo.

2 Likes
5

I actually would have suggested bigger buffs with that one, I just didn’t list any actual buffs on that post.

Just left a big “insert buffs here” section.

6

Fair enough. You haven’t mentioned anything regarding Orisa’s shield. I assume that with Sigma getting a buff in that regard, Orisa could get one as well?

7

It’s because I forgot, thanks

1 Like
8

I think Hog would be busted if all these tanks only had 350/400 hp. You could practically hook combo them. Lul. At least if you spam a secondary or two to strip their armor.

1 Like
9

Well, that’s part of the beauty of it.

Barriers have barrier sustain.
NonBarriers have excessive muscle sustain.

Means DoubleOfffTank is less of a Throw.
And there’s a strong reason to have an offtank for SingleBarrier.

But also means BarrierTanks aren’t dueling gods, with firepower, HP, and Barriers.

4 Likes
10

Do not get me wrong, the idea sounds hilariously fun… but I just feel that we would have an epidemic of double off tank instalocks. We already do while barriers are relatively busted.

1 Like
11

Would that be so much a problem of it wasn’t automatically a ThrowComp?

Keeping in mind, the reason they go offtank is to shoot stuff. And now main tanks can shoot stuff.

2 Likes
12

Eh… I guess not. The game would literally just be more fun.

1 Like
13

Crazy concept huh. Designing the game around the way people actually want to play it.

1 Like
14

I’d say we don’t need more barriers than now. We need to put more threat into the current main tanks themselves than their shields. As you say, more shooting stuff. As option I’d say some barriers can be huge in health but low on recharge to reduce the overall uptime and being beneficial on fast initial push but less effective in long battles.

1 Like
15

I think it’s kinda boring with Rein being the only real “Main Barrier Tank”.

16

Yea, but if we’ll have multiple viable barrier tank, we’ll stack barriers again. Berriers either need some sort of a counterplay or better we dont need big barriers at all. The game felt fine when Rein was banned so we’re kinda ok with current barrier strength of Sigma and Orisa.

1 Like
17

Yup, but that’s the point of the reduced HealthPool on BarrierTanks.

Stacked barriers don’t matter if you Dive/Speedboost past them and rip up the vulnerable tanks behind them.

18

The game did not feel fine at all. mostly because people just ran dive.

1 Like
19

I still personally hate the amount of barriers in this game- and contribute it as a huge factor in the “issue” with tanks.

20

I might be biased on this point as Tracer player but I’m completely fine with dive. And Sigma poke comps were ok.

Well it sounds completely fine on paper but it kinda requires specific strategy and can cause a frustration when the team doesn’t play along… I’d say can be terrible for lower ranks but not sure.